Educational blog articles around inbound marketing.

Marketing Terms: Overview of Common Marketing Terms and Examples

As Google, the driver of global online marketing, continues to press onward in its mission to rid the internet of all tactics that put something else (like clicks and sales) ahead of user experience, the term “inbound marketing” is used with more frequency.

It's important to understand that this type of marketing relies on creating useful content that attracts a potential client before they are even ready to buy. It’s the polar opposite of various types of intrusive advertising.

If you’re an internet marketer in the early stages of implementing an inbound marketing strategy, here are some common marketing terms to get you off on the right foot.

A/B Testing

This is the process of comparing variations of things like email headlines, landing page content, or even font color in order to find which performs better. Make no mistake, tiny changes can result in huge profits. Successful marketers know the testing process and room for improvement never stops.

B2B and B2C

These two terms are thrown around a lot. The first stands for business to business and the second business to consumer. They are used to differentiate between the idea of marketing your product or service to a business or consumer client.

Blogging and Business Blogging

Blogging was there in the early days of the internet, primarily as a means for individuals to share their thoughts in an online journal or “weblog” format. These days the practice has evolved into one of the primary means for generating website traffic and developing a following.

Call-To-Action

A call-to-action or CTA can be a text link, image, button or anything else that typically occupies the critical space at the bottom of your content or within an email and encourages the reader to take a specific action.

That action is often to give you their email address in return for something free like a report or eBook on a topic they’re interested in. This is a critical part of marketing campaigns.

Clickthrough Rate

This metric is an important one as it represents the number of people who have advanced from one stage of your marketing to the next. Generally this means they were interested in some content you posted and clicked on the CTA to learn more.

Content

Content is essentially any piece of information that exists in order to be interacted with by potential customers. In a perfect world your content will be consumed, engaged with and then shared. Examples of content include: articles, social media posts, videos, blog posts, podcasts and more.

Crowdsourced Content

As Google continues to emphasize the value of content, marketers realize that there isn't always enough hours in the day to create as much content as they’d like. That’s where crowdsourcing comes in.

The concept is simple. Solicit submissions by subject matter, experts, and/or celebrities. Package and distribute that content however you like and give them the credit.

Evergreen Content

Evergreen content simply refers to the idea of creating content that is not date specific. In other words, it would still provide value even to a reader who stumbled across it many years in the future. Content based on breaking news events would not be considered evergreen.

Hashtag

Hashtags are a shorthand way for people to connect through social media on a topic they’re interested in. It ties conversations taking place on multiple social media platforms into a single stream.

Hashtags are used by putting the pound sign in front of a phrase without spaces, like #InboundMarketing or #MarketingTerms. Make use of relevant hashtags in your social media posts to increase your reach.

Inbound Link

When another website links to your website it is known as an inbound link. Google places a lot of emphasis on quality inbound links from authority websites. In other words, inbound links are great for seo purposes and can help your content and website pages rank in search engines.

Keyword

Keywords are the cornerstone of any online marketing effort. The idea is simple. Say you have a website on the topic of dog training. Obviously, you should put words related to that subject in any content you produce.

You would use “dog training,” “dog training tips,” “how to train your dog,” etc. Google wants to see targeted, appropriate keywords in your content in return for a higher search results ranking.

Landing Page

Landing pages are a great way to enact conversions with your website. These are pages that feature some sort of offer that has the reader give you their email and/or other information in return for something of value.

The goal of landing pages is to generate leads and grow an email list so you begin nurturing leads further down the buyer's journey.

Mobile Marketing and Mobile Optimization

Ready to have your mind blown? More than 70 percent of all minutes spent online in the United States are logged through mobile devices, and this number will only increase.

Targeting this audience with your marketing efforts is critical to your success and will become even more so in coming years.

Mobile optimization is the process of increasing the performance of your website for mobile users by optimizing the layout, navigation, text/images, load speed, and more.

Social Proof

This concept revolves around the idea that people look to others for direction before making a decision. As a deep-seated part of the human psyche, it applies to both the online and offline environments.

As reflected in social media, look for the viral nature of some posts that rack up a lot of discussion and or engagement. If everybody’s sharing it, it must be good, right?

Consider what you can takeaway from these posts from other thought leaders and how you can do it better or differently when evaluating and creating your own social media posts.

User Experience

Think of this as the sum total of every interaction a visitor has with your online presence. User experience is everthing from discovery all the way through communicating with you, exploring your website, and finally purchasing a product and advocating for you to other potential customers.

From start to finish, you should strive to provide every customer and visitor to your site with a pleasant user experience.

Closing

By continuing to expand your familiarity with these common marketing terms and more, you will be well on your way to seeking marketing success.

I hope you found this information beneficial and feel free to comment down below any thoughts or questions you may have.

ZioSolutions is an Inbound Marketing, Website Design, and Sales Enablement Agency. Founded in 2015 by Zachary Raineri and Geoff King, ZioSolutions is proud to be located in St. Louis, Missouri and active in helping others achieve marketing and sales success.